Raising Champion Crops

Twelve-year-old Tadesse Birara wakes up at 5:30 with sleep still in his eyes to join 100 other kids for an early training session. But when he arrives at the training ground at 6:05, his coach, Sentayehu Eshetu, barks at him for being five minutes late and punishes him with an extra hour of training.

He tries to plead his way out of it by saying that he would be late for school, but the coach has none of it. Tadesse is upset, but deep down he knows that his coach means well. He recalls the coach’s preaching of the need for discipline and what it takes to make it to the top.

Tadesse’s boyish smile disappears when he looks down on the training ground and remembers that the feet of many of the town’s famous sons and daughters tread hard on these surfaces long before crossing the finish line in some of the planet’s showcase athletic events. Tadesse joins his training partners knowing that working hard here will get him to the top of his sport much later in his life.

Healthy Heartland

Tadesse comes from Bekoji, a small agrarian town 100 miles outside Ethiopia’s capital of Addis Ababa. That’s a two-hour drive by Western standards, but the trip to Bekoji takes "ages." Rough, rugged roads do not allow for comfort unless you have the perfect off-road car and, even then, you need to cope with considerable bouncing up and down. When you read the road sign that welcomes you to this agricultural hinterland, you will notice that your mobile phone is now in a non-network area.

Technology and travel comfort aside, you will likely feel that you have been betrayed by media reports that describe Ethiopia as a dry and drought-stricken land. You will conclude that there are two Ethiopias: one that the international media is always rushing to portray as a rain-devoid, poverty-stricken nation, and the other, a living paradise that you see right in front of you.

Bekoji and the neighboring farming districts represent one of the most fertile regions in Ethiopia. Farmers here toil for three seasons a year. The main agricultural produce of the area is a grain staple known as teff; the region also produces wheat, barley, sorghum, and other cereals. There is enough land for the inhabitants to cultivate and live in care-free existence from the proceeds.

Agricultural products, however, are the least known products from this area. "Bekoji is the true production center for Ethiopian long-distance talent," says Gebretsadik Tesfaye, the head coach of the Arsi province athletics team, and Haile Gebrselassie’s first coach.

Many of Ethiopia’s well-known and internationally acclaimed distance stars were born and raised here, including Derartu Tulu, Kenenisa Bekele, Fatuma Roba, and the Dibaba sisters, Tirunesh and Ejegayehu. Haile Gebrselassie was born in Assela, 20 miles from Bekoji, while Gezahegne Abera’s home village is a one-hour drive.

Fifteen years ago, many Ethiopians, let alone foreigners, would have been hard pressed to even correctly pronounce Bekoji, but the town now holds a special place in the hearts of many Ethiopians. Every year when a famous son or daughter from this town of fewer than 200,000 people places in the top three of a major global championship, the name Bekoji is thrown into the limelight. But the question remains: Why does Bekoji produce such prolific athletic talent? Answering that question reveals the process of molding the ideal distance runner.

Recipe for Runners

The center of Bekoji sits at an altitude of 10,500 feet above sea level and has an average temperature of 66 degrees. "Athletes from this region and other high-altitude parts of Ethiopia are equipped with hemoglobin that has extraordinary levels of oxygen-transporting capability," says Dr. Woldemeskel Kostre, National Athletics team coach. Kostre did his master’s thesis on the effects of altitude on long-distance running, and has helped introduce the concept of altitude training to the country’s runners.

Living at altitude contributes to the high levels of hemoglobin, but the inhabitants’ iron-based diet is also a major contributing factor. "Hemoglobin is largely iron-dependent for its normal functioning, and grain staples like teff are excellent sources of iron," confirms Dr. Kostre. Apart from teff, locals regularly eat wheat, barley and sorghum, which provide strength in addition to being excellent sources of iron.

Altitude and the right diet, however, will be of no use unless they are supported with the correct mindset for success and the training needed to get an athlete closer to his or her dream. "The majority of Ethiopian runners will continue to come from the rural parts of the country," adds Dr. Kostre. "They have the toughness that many runners from the city do not have."

Toughness in Bekoji, however, does not mean defeating poverty and rising to sainthood as many previous accounts of the success of Ethiopian athletes would suggest. Compared to other regions of the country, inhabitants here are certainly well off and stories of rags-to-riches rises to prominence hold little ground. "I have 12 children, but none

of them have ever gone to bed on an empty stomach," says Bekele Beyecha, Olympic 10,000m champion Kenenisa Bekele’s father.

That said, lifestyles of children in this rural region are much different than that of westerners or city dwellers. The majority of Bekojians are farmers, and one of the lessons in life they pass to their children is the art of plowing the land. There are no machines, tractors, graders, or loaders here and all the farm work has to be done manually. Spending your day on the farm is really no fun for a child, but it does make you tough.

If a youngster contemplates a better life away from herding cattle and digging earth, the most logical method of escape would be education. "I loved math and what I was able to do with numbers," recalls Bekele. "I knew that I did not want to be a farmer. The world was moving on, and I had to work very hard to catch up."

But as Bekele later found out, it is difficult to keep your mind on education when there is a proven success recipe waiting next door. "We tell the children stories of how Derartu Tulu and Kenenisa Bekele worked hard to get to the top of distance running," says Eshetu, a sports teacher at the Bekoji Elementary School, one of only two elementary schools in the town. "It inspires them and they work hard in their training to try and make it to the top."

Filled with stories of motivation and heroism, hundreds take to the training grounds each morning and late afternoon to fulfill their dreams. "Competition is fierce," explains Eshetu. "You have to be very good to get past the other runners."

Proving Grounds

The Ethiopian Athletics Federation (EAF), the governing body for athletics in the country, has provided the Bekoji town council a small budget to train only 25 to 30 youngsters every year, but more than 200 youngsters appear on selection day for a chance to be included in the youth development project. "It is difficult to drop someone with enthusiasm," says Eshetu. "We usually take about 100 or more youngsters, but they must work hard to prove themselves."

Eshetu’s definition of hard work includes training at least three times a week on one of the most punishing hills you will ever see: "The Wenz." It consists of a double hill, each about 50 feet high, divided by a narrow strip of water. For their cross country workouts, the runners run up and down the hill and jump from one elevation to the next. Typically, they do these repeats 40 or 50 times a day—clearly not for the faint-hearted.

This constitutes only the first half of their weekly training routine, however. The remainder of the week is spent in the Bekoji soccer and track stadium. Here, coaches teach them how to run laps and basic racing tactics. "At the Wenz, they develop the strength in their bodies," Eshetu says. "But at the stadium, we teach them to think like a runner."

After months of hard work and training, Bekoji’s dreamers are pitted with runners from nearby towns in the Arsi Interstate Championships. "These championships are very competitive and serve as the selection meet for the Oromiya Regional Championships," says Coach Eshetu.

When athletes from Bekoji do reach Oromiya, they are already a class apart from the rest. "It always surprises me because kids from Bekoji win the top three or four positions in the Oromiya Regional Championships," says coach Tesfaye.

If they manage to be among the top contenders in the regional championships, opportunities will come knocking at their door. The usual step is selection for the Oromiya team for the Ethiopian National Track Championships or the Ethiopian Cross Country Championships.

At these two national championships, the runners will have a chance to compete against the best from other regions of the country and also be scouted by the top clubs. "When we see a potentially good athlete, we tell him or her to come to our trials," says Kassahun Alemayehu, head athletics coach of the Ethiopian Banks Sports Club. "We have trials three times a year upon which we pick the runners and take them on as members of our club."

It is also during this time that athletes will be contacted by foreign management agencies so that they can have a chance to compete in international meets around the world. Running abroad will help them gain selection for global running events, as the EAF use times from IAAF meets to pick World Championship and Olympic teams.

Urban Roadblocks

The path to glory for an athlete from Bekoji, or indeed any town, is not as straightforward as one might come to expect, though. "Each year we discover many athletes with potential to reach the top," says Dr. Kostre. "But what we do here [in Addis Ababa] is select the best from the best."

An athlete recruited by one of Addis Ababa’s clubs or the Ethiopian national team will need to move to Addis Ababa

in order to receive training. "Moving to the big city is very difficult," recalls Olympic 10,000m silver medalist Ejegayehu Dibaba. "Everything is different in Addis Ababa, and life is generally expensive."

Until they get the chance to compete in big-money races outside Ethiopia, athletes have to get by on a small stipend of less than $50 a month. "We know that it is not enough to live in Addis Ababa," says an anonymous member of Omedla Sports Club. "But we do not have the budget to provide for more."

The harsh living conditions of the capital city usually force many athletes to give up their dreams and return to their villages. "There is usually nothing much left to return to," recalls Derartu Tulu, who escaped a pre-arranged marriage almost 16 years ago in Bekoji to come to Addis Ababa and try to be a runner.

Even for those who endure, making it to the top requires more than showcasing their talent. Some have had to grapple with corrupt practices as well. "They [coaches and selectors] sexually harass female athletes and expect us to feel good about it," former world 10,000m champion Gete Wami recently said.

Circle of Success

Despite all these factors, many experts agree that runners from Bekoji have the mental toughness to rise to the big occasions. "They never forget who they are and where they came from," says Tesfaye. "So it is most natural to expect them to succeed at the highest level."

And when runners from the region return to their hometowns—this time as heroes—they often feel an obligation to help their families. Bekele, for example, bought a house at the heart of Bekoji for his parents and hired laborers to farm the family’s land back in the village. The Dibaba sisters have also built a house for their parents in the city. "Thanks to my daughters, I do not have to worry about farming anymore," says their father, Dibaba Keneni.

Each house built by a runner in Bekoji helps inspire another generation of youngsters to take up the sport. Thus the town continues what seems a never-ending cycle by which champions continue to inspire their pretenders to run their way to the top.

Elshadai Negash is the Ethiopian correspondent for the website and magazine of the IAAF and editor of Ethiopia’s only athletics-based website, www.ethiopiarun.org.

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